5 Essential Course Planning Tips for a Successful UC-to-UC Transfer

Introduction: 

If you are currently attending a UC and are hoping to transfer to another UC, planning your courses properly is extremely crucial. Besides your GPA, extracurriculars, and essays, what UC transfer admissions officers weigh in high regard is whether or not you have completed enough credits to be considered a junior level transfer, and if you have satisfied your selected major’s transfer requirements. 

At all of the UCs, course registration and selection is difficult, and it is something you may be experiencing at your current UC. That’s because there are more students signing up for lower division courses than the amount that can be accommodated for. The average lower-division course tends to have space only for 200-300 students per quarter/semester, and there may be up to 500 students competing for a slot in that class. 

Now, from the perspective of a transfer admissions officer, would you admit a transfer student that has yet to fulfill all of the pre-major requirements (including some lower divisions)? The answer is probably not, because admitting a student who would add to that lower-division course demand would not be ideal. 

Now consider that the transfer student is from another UC. They already attend a 4-year institution, meaning that they have a home for the next 4 years. In comparison, CC students, who make up the vast majority of UC transfer applicants, would be recent graduates and looking for a home for the next two years. 

That being said, it should be clear: transfer applicants who don’t have their transfer major requirements complete will have low odds of admission, let alone applicants currently at a UC. In this article, I’ll give you some tips on how to get started with course planning for a successful UC transfer process. 

Guide: 

For those of you reading this, chances are that you are a first-year UC student in the latter half of your year, or a second-year UC student about to start their application cycle. No matter how far along you are on your college journey, this resource should still apply to you! 

Tip #1: Compare Major Sheets/Requirements 

Your first priority should be to compare your current major requirements to the transfer major requirements of the UC(s) that you desire to transfer to. For instance, if you are a pre-biology major at UCSB hoping to transfer into psychobiology at UCLA, you should look at your UCSB pre-biology major sheet, and compare all of the listed prerequisites to the transfer requirements for psychobiology at UCLA. All of the UC’s will have their transfer major requirements listed on their respective websites. Making this comparison will help you determine what courses you need to go out of your way to get, and to even switch majors at your current UC to gain access to the courses that you need. 

Tip #2: Check Course Availability 

If you’ve done Tip #1, you should have an idea about what courses you need to take. Now, you need to figure out when to take them. Because UC coursework is very rigorous, you’re probably only going to take at max 4-6 courses (quarter system) or 6-8 courses (semester) in a given quarter/semester. Given your limited time span of 2 years to get all of your transfer major requirements done, you need to make sure that you can fit them all in your schedule. Hence, your next priority would be to list out the quarters/semesters that each course requirement is available at your UC. This will narrow down your course schedule possibilities. 

Tip #3: Check Course Prerequisites 

Now that you have an idea of what courses you need to take and during what quarters/semesters to take them, you now need to know what sequence to take them in, and what their flexibility is like. List out those prerequisites (you can find them in your UC’s course catalog, or on your UC’s course registration website). You’ll find that most of the courses that you need to take as a transfer requirement are offered in a sequence, besides your GE’s for IGETC. 

Tip #4: Create Mock Schedules 

If you’ve already registered for courses at your current UC, you probably understand how difficult it is to get the courses that you want, especially at the times that you prefer. Therefore, I would recommend creating several mock schedules in a spreadsheet (mock out the full first two years). Make columns for every quarter/semester in both years, and place courses according to the availability and prerequisites that you found in Tips 2 + 3. Highlight/Bold the courses that are in a sequence (because you can only take those courses in a certain order); those will be the courses that you work around in your schedule. 

Try making several possible schedules, incorporating several GE’s and other variable major requirements around your highlighted/bolded courses. Be realistic with the amount of courses per quarter/semester; most lower-division courses are likely high in demand, are offered at conflicting times (to other courses), and have restrictions placed on them in the first pass time (first registration slot). If courses times/days have been released on your UC registration portal, make sure to incorporate those into your mock schedules. 

For those in their late first-year or early second year, I would recommend cross referencing the courses that you have already taken with the transfer major requirements and see whether or not you need to take more courses or start a new course sequence. Your priority should be to get any required course sequences out of the way, because those will affect your scheduling flexibility down the line. 

Tip #5: Take Community College Classes Concurrently

If you still have a lot of course requirements to get through (most humanities majors need to complete IGETC within two years), I highly recommend enrolling in online, asynchronous courses at a community college. Again, you would need to cross-reference what courses that you’ve taken at your current UC to satisfy your transfer major requirements and determine what areas you still need to fulfill. I suggest using assist.org or transferology.com to see which courses can properly transfer from CC to UC. 

Taking online, asynchronous courses at several community colleges is a great way to not only satisfy transfer major requirements, but also to free up some room in your schedule to get stringent course sequences out of the way and improve your GPA. You will need to check your current UC’s concurrent enrollment policy to see if they allow you to enroll in CC courses during the school year. If they don’t allow you, you can still take courses over the summer. 

Conclusion: 

If you’ve followed all of the above tips, you are on the right path to seeing a successful UC transfer application cycle! You would have planned out the courses you need to take, when to take them, and in what sequence to take them. You would also have a few schedules in your back pocket to follow in case your original plan falls through on registration day. 

If you are interested in additional course planning guidance, or UC transfer advising in general, please feel free to sign up for a free consultation through our website! Our team would be happy to arrange a 1-on-1 meeting with you.